The human brain is just 1.3 kg of wet grey tissue. This small mass manages to translate our senses into sight, smell and sound—beautiful or otherwise.

On Wednesday 16 March, Malta Café Scientifique will be hosting a talk by eminent neuroscientist Vincenzo Crunelli (School of Bioscience, Cardiff University) on Brain Oscillations in Epilepsy. The talk will be held at 19:00 at the Italian Cultural Institute. The event is part of the Malta Brain Awareness week, a national campaign organised by Malta Neuroscience Network to increase public awareness on the progress and benefits of brain research.

The night will start off with a chat between two neuroscientists, Prof. Giuseppe Di Giovanni and Prof. Crunelli and two people who have overcome Epilepsy. This will be followed by a screening of Trudy Kerr’s film about how after suffering a horse riding accident that led to her developing a type of epilepsy, she managed to beat it by running Marathons in Malta and London, and treatments.

After the film, Prof. Crunelli will take the audience through a journey into our brains. He will talk about brain rhythms and electrical oscillations in the brain that give rise to consciousness and sleep and how failures in these rhythms can lead to a variety of brain disorders such as epilepsy.

Prof. Vincenzo Crunelli has been recently appointed as Affiliate Professor in the Department of Physiology and Biochemistry, University of Malta. Malta Brain Awareness week is organised by the Malta Neuroscience Network of the University of Malta and supported by the University’s Research Trust (RIDT), Istituto Italiano di Cultura (IIC) and Malta Chamber of Scientists.